New roads police team for major construction work

A police force is hiring a road team to escort abnormal loads heading to and from nationally significant infrastructure projects such as Sizewell C nuclear power station.

Suffolk Police said it was recruiting a designated abnormal indivisible loads (AIL) team that would consist of police motorcyclists.

It envisaged the team would work with several projects for several years, and noted that its current project with the new Sizewell C nuclear plant near Leiston was for 12 years.

Chief Constable Rachel Kearton said the "uplift required to support the policing element of the Sizewell C development has been secured through the planning process and paid for by the Sizewell C developer".

"The funding is for the purpose of mitigating potential impacts associated with the project so Suffolk Constabulary can maintain a business-as-usual approach to policing," she explained about the Sizewell C project.

"We are making significant efforts to ensure we continue to police all our communities in east Suffolk effectively and keep them as safe as possible for all residents, workers, and businesses.

"This will continue over the coming months and years as the project progresses."

She added that a "carefully co-ordinated roads policing provision" was in place to ensure safe movement of the abnormal loads to and from Sizewell.

The UK government, which is the largest shareholder in Sizewell C Limited, is building a new two-reactor nuclear power station on the coast next to the Sizewell A and B sites, that could power the equivalent of about six million homes and will generate electricity for 60 years.

Permission for the project was granted in July 2022 before the government gave its final funding approval last year.

It is expected to be operational by the mid to late 2030s, with construction work already ongoing.

It is not just Sizewell C however taking place in the county.

All in various different stages of planning or development, projects like Sunnica energy farm, Nautilus, Sea Link, LionLink, or the Norwich to Tilbury pylon plans could also be covered by the new policing team.

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